by Phoebe Conn
“I didn’t bring it with me, and I don’t know their numbers. Let’s go around to the back. Maybe they left the kitchen door open for me.”
He took her hand in a soft clasp. “I’ll stay with you if you can’t get in. We could sleep on the beach, and you’d be able to sneak back into the house when the kitchen help arrives in the morning. No one would have to know you’d been out all night.”
The evening was pleasantly warm, but sleeping on the beach with him for company couldn’t possibly be as innocent as he made it sound. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
He tried the back door. “It’s locked too.” He stepped back to look up at the second floor, but no lights were showing. “Maybe Santos isn’t home yet. We could wait for him here.”
She moved farther back to also search the dark balconies. The shutters that closed them off from the sea at night were all shut. “The twins said they’d wait up for me. Maybe they’re watching a movie downstairs. I’ve not been through the whole house, so I’m not sure where to look. There should be a nurse on duty. Maybe she’ll come into the kitchen.”
“So the house is full of people?” he asked.
She swallowed hard but still felt as though she’d been deliberately shut out. It brought a familiar ache, and she shook it off. “It could be, but I’d rather not wake my grandmother or Cirilda.”
“Or Santos?” he added softly.
“Are matadors ever friends?”
He looked out toward the sea. “We must take care of ourselves first. That doesn’t leave much time for friends. Although I have jumped into an arena a time or two to distract a bull when another matador has slipped and fallen.”
“I’m sure no one doubts your bravery.”
“Of course they do. Every time I fight, I must prove it all over again. Fans keep screaming for more and more. The trick is not to listen.”
“Is that something my father taught you?”
“Yes, he taught me everything I know. He’s the reason I love bullfighting. You should have seen him.”
Clearly Rafael was an adrenaline junkie who lived for increasingly dangerous thrills. Her father had survived, even if others hadn’t. Some women were drawn to daredevils of every sort, but she wasn’t among them.
A glass-topped patio table and chairs, a chaise and padded stools were clustered together on the patio. He gestured toward the chaise. “We should make ourselves comfortable.”
“Someone will turn up sooner or later. I’d rather walk on the beach.” She kicked off her shoes.
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
She sighed. “No. Bullfighting has been popular for centuries in Spain. You’ve grown up loving it, and I can understand the need some people have for excitement.”
“But you don’t approve?”
“How you choose to live your life is no concern of mine. Are you trying to start a fight?”
“Why would I do that?”
She’d learned a great deal from Craig and gave one of the psychologist’s explanations. “Some people are used to being surrounded by turmoil, and whenever it’s absent, they create it themselves.”
He looked puzzled. “You’ve met men who’d rather fight than dance?”
“A few, but I didn’t know them long.”
“They disappointed you?”
“No, I didn’t give them the chance.” She looked up at the house. “This is a wonderfully strange home, isn’t it?”
He moved close. “Not everyone admires Gaudí.”
“I do. No one has ever seen the world the way he did.”
He leaned down to slide a curl off her shoulder and kissed her cheek. “How do you see the world?”
With him standing so close, her thoughts were on him rather than philosophy. “I don’t know. That’s one of the reasons I came here, to make sense of everything.”
“In a week?”
“Why not? Maybe a week is enough, or it could take me a lifetime.”
“Then you needn’t do it all tonight. Let’s go on down to the water. It’s a shame everyone can’t live on the edge of the sea.”
“Some people prefer the mountains.”
“Do you?”
His frequent questions surprised her. Most men talked only about themselves. He was too smart to do so, apparently, but she still didn’t trust him. Unused to being a celebrity’s daughter, she was beginning to sympathize with public figures’ children and how difficult their lives truly must be. They’d never know who were truly their friends or where the answer to an innocent question might appear for the world to see or read.
“I could watch the sea all day,” she confided softly. “Mountains provide lovely scenery and views, but the sea’s never static.”
“I’d rather dance.” He raised her hand to turn her in a slow twirl. “It’s difficult to dance in sand, though.”
She laughed with him. While she never wanted to see it, she bet his grace served him well in the bullring. When he pulled her close, she moved easily into his arms. His kiss was another light brush across her lips, tender and sweet, leaving her with an unfamiliar ache for more. She wondered if he were closer to being a gentle soul rather than a swaggering matador. Regardless, he was a very desirable man. She grabbed hold of his shirt and pulled him back.
“Kiss me like you mean it.” She licked his lower lip, and he tightened his grasp on her waist to lift her off the sandy patio. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on. She flicked her tongue over his and waited for him to make the kiss his own. He was still slow and sweet, but he lingered now, and his affection had the intoxicating allure of the wine they’re shared and took her breath away.
The sweep of Santos’s headlights startled them both. “I’m sorry,” he murmured and set her down.
Love is always in the last place you’d think to look.
Fugitive Heart
© 2013 Bonnie Dee and Summer Devon
Between her steady waitressing job and less-steady gigs designing websites, Ames Jensen is scraping together enough money to buy the old farmhouse that holds most of her most treasured childhood memories.
When a complete stranger buys it right out from under her nose, she stomps over for a neighborly visit, prepared to dislike him on sight. Yet even after he nearly brains her with a shovel, she finds herself more attracted than alarmed.
Falsely implicated for stealing from the Esposito crime family, Nick Ross is frantically in search of his supposed accomplice, Elliot Jensen, or at least the money and information the man took. Elliot’s hometown seems the perfect place to look—and the last place the Espositos will look for him.
Elliot’s cute, vivacious sister is an unexpected mother lode of clues—and smoking hot distraction. But when she does a little digging of her own, the truth threatens to send their love—and their lives—down in the crossfire.
Warning: Contains a secretive man with a shady past and a woman from a small town where no one can keep a secret. If they fall in love, sneak a kiss or two, and have a little hot sex in a shabby farm house, well, it’s nobody’s business but their own.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Fugitive Heart:
Nick had already looked around downstairs. Time to expand the search. If he could get the money and whatever else had been stolen, then he could take it easy and figure out his next step in peace.
He’d memorized the text that bastard Elliot had sent. Should’ve listened when you told me to keep clear of the Espositos. Somebody may come to your apartment looking for something, but it’s safe in a place they’ll never find. Sorry I suck as a friend.
When Nick had tried to send a return message asking what the hell Elliot was talking about, the text bounced. A disposable phone, no doubt, and Elliot long gone to wherever.
Nick bet no one in New York knew Elliot was from a little village in Wisconsin. He’d only admitted that to Nick when they got drunk one night in college. He seemed ashamed of the place and told everyone he was from Chicago—as if
coming from a big city made you a better player. Arnesdale, Wisconsin, seemed like the most logical place Elliot would’ve gone to ground, or stashed stuff he’d taken from criminals.
Elliot had called his special hangout the Old Place. And his description matched this farmhouse perfectly. Hell, turned out everyone else in town called it the Old Place too.
Nick climbed the stairs two at a time. The house had personality; Nick had to give it that. He walked through a couple of oddly shaped bedrooms and two strange little tower rooms composed mostly of windows—which weren’t broken. No graffiti, either. This definitely wasn’t the city.
He tapped on walls, knelt by floorboards, peered into closets and thumped on their walls, a penlight between his teeth. Nothing.
Sighing, he switched off the penlight and made his cautious way back downstairs. He had a sleeping bag and other camping gear. He was far better prepared this time for a break from his regular life, he thought grimly as he hauled a can of fruit from the cupboard.
A cake sat on the counter. A lady had left it on his doorstep, along with a note welcoming him to the neighborhood. She’d signed the note “Missy” with a smiley face dotting the i.
He’d watched her from upstairs. She’d had hair piled on her head, an okay figure under an ugly, tight, flower dress, high heels and painted nails. Not exactly the overalls and freckle-faced farm-girl look he’d expected to find in the country. She’d seemed nervous as she’d waited and had hung around way too long before giving up and driving off.
What had that meant?
Nick studied the cake for a minute, then dumped it into a garbage sack. He wouldn’t take any chances. His father’s example had taught him that.
The sight of the cake made his stomach rumble. Right. He’d stored maybe a week’s worth of food in the cupboard. And then what?
His reserves, the money he’d saved up for years, was gone. Some of it had gone into his new identity; most of it had gone into getting this place. Land contract had been the only way he could get his hands on the house—and that meant a hefty deposit. Not that he had any intention of sticking around after he got what he needed. Even if this wasn’t the place Elliot had referenced in his text, at least Nick was safe enough here. And his new license said “Sam Allen”. Not the best alias ever, but better than “Sam Adams”. The idiot who’d sold him the ID had wanted to give him that name—inspired by a beer bottle, not the founding father.
Nick opened the peaches and ate from the can, standing at the sink, which he still hadn’t managed to unclog. The pipes had rumbled ominously the first time he’d tried the taps. A farm had well water, of course. No city supply out here in Nowheresville.
He drank the aluminum-flavored peach syrup and flipped the can into the garbage. Dinner was over.
Someone knocked on the door. He slid to the wall and drew the pistol he’d taken off the guy who’d shown up at Elliot’s place at three a.m. two weeks ago. That was the night it started, the night he’d gone to find out what was going on. The night Elliot vanished as if he’d never existed.
Through the small window in the front door, Nick could see a shadow moving and heard two voices. Two women, talking together about the weather. More neighbors?
What the hell? This house was at least four miles from the closest town, Arnesdale. Didn’t people move to areas like this, past Podunk, beyond the outback of nowhere, because they hated being near neighbors? He thought of the movies set in the country—god-awful horror movies he and Elliot had watched in college. Usually some lunatic farmer slaughtered people and made them into pies, carrying on for years before anyone noticed. That was when Elliot had described this house. The country was isolated, not Grand Central Station.
Nick sank into a crouch, resting on his heels. Eventually he’d have to go into town and interact with other people, but he had no desire to face anyone before he had to.
The women knocked again. They even rattled the doorknob. He could hear their surprise when they discovered it locked. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall.
Eventually they clattered off the porch, still talking. He strained his ears and for a moment felt dismay that they were chattering about “the back porch”. Except, no, they weren’t trying another approach to this house—there was no back porch, just a door off the kitchen. Their words made no sense until he remembered seeing a sign for a Back Porch Diner in town. That was where the crowds would gather to plan their next attack on the new neighbor, he supposed. Women offering plastic containers of food and aluminum-covered cakes.
He laughed, and the sound echoed in the nearly empty room. After a lifetime of dealing with the fallout from his father leaving the “family business” and then the whole nonsense with Elliot, no wonder Nick had gone over the paranoid edge. There wasn’t some kind of conspiracy, just a bunch of bored, curious locals stopping by the house.
Probably.
Nick went back to searching the house—Elliot’s “safe place” maybe meant an actual safe. Nick had bought a shovel. Time to start digging in the dirt basement.
Nick started in the far corner, where the dirt was darker, and dug down at least two feet per hole. He was on his fifth unpleasant hole when the floorboard over his head creaked.
He froze, held his breath, listened. Footsteps crossed the floor, moving from the front of the house toward the back. The tread sounded too light for the person to be one of the thugs he’d half expected to show up on his doorstep. On the other hand, no one was calling out a welcome to announce their presence. And, damn it, his gun was upstairs in the bedroom where he’d left it.
He hefted the shovel in his hands, turning the spade head up so he could use it as a weapon; then he crept to the stairs and slowly began to ascend, catching his breath every time one creaked.
Crap, he should probably just stay put in the basement. If this home intruder had a gun, he was screwed. There was an exit from the basement to the outside—one of those old-fashioned, slanting doors. He should probably have used it and hidden out in the woods until the house was clear. But he was nearly at the top of the stairs now. Through the partially open door, he caught a glimpse of someone moving. He drew a breath and leaped out into the hallway, brandishing the shovel.
A shriek pierced his ears, and a woman whirled to face him. Her eyes were so wide the whites showed almost all the way around. Blue eyes. Cornflower blue and fringed with thick lashes. Brown curly hair, cut shoulder length. Short, compact build and neat, even features. Not beautiful but cute, especially with that little uptilt at the tip of her nose. Clearly not someone who’d been sent to kill him.
Fierce Passion
Phoebe Conn
Two hearts exposed…love balanced on the razor edge of truth.
Still mourning the loss of her matador lover, Ana Santillan also faces the prospect of shifting careers from successful haute couture model to fashion photographer. All while dealing with a mysterious admirer whose attentions are escalating beyond her comfort zone.
Dating isn’t on her busy schedule, but on one of her anonymous, Goth-disguised forays to a Barcelona café, a charming young architecture student tempts her to escape into a playful romance.
Alejandro Vasquez has his own secrets to guard. Heir to a shipping fortune, he longs to escape family obligations to live his own life. But it isn’t easy to break away. When Ana is injured in a car accident, though, it feels natural to claim to be her husband to expedite her treatment.
Awakening with a hazy memory, Ana finds it easy to believe she and Alejandro are a pair—until the truth inevitably comes out. Now Alejandro must fight for her love. And when the stalker makes his move, he must fight to save her life before there’s any chance to make forever a reality.
Warning: Contains a tempestuous affair between a supermodel who’s a stickler for honesty, and a hot Latin lover who’s not above a little white lie in the name of love. Plus seductive designer shoes. What’s not to like?
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They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Fierce Passion
Copyright © 2013 by Phoebe Conn
ISBN: 978-1-61921-840-6
Edited by Linda Ingmanson
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: November 2013
www.samhainpublishing.com
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
